#whendoorknocking "what do you think is the purpose in life then?"... as he walks away yells, "RAISE HELL, RAISE CHILDREN, AND EARN MONEY!"‏

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes and stories about me being born! I got your package right on my birthday. Lela so you know I did get your letter and yes i did hug the letter just like you instructed me thank you for the much needed hug =p. The cookies that were in it was just about all pixy dust and hard when I got them though, but I appreciate the thought and hope you never loose the habit of making me cookies when I get home. (Miya make me cookies =p).  I have had several people celebrate my birthday and give us stuff because of it so I have been very blessed even though I totally forgot that I was even gonna be 19.

But heres what happened this week I got my temporary companion from the MSU institute building and ditched Elder B off to let him go to the temple and go home. I had fun with the guy I was put with and we did good work together, but he really tried to take over my area and tell me how to live my life... But what ev it was only for about 3 days. I had to keep shutting him down (felt bad about it, but he was trying to take control of situations he didn't understand) 

We went over to go teach a less active member who we had been working at getting back to church and we have gotten him to church twice so far. But we went there and my companion goes off for like 10 minutes convincing this less active and setting up a scenario for us to "practice teach" him. After he finished he told me to get out a pamphlet and show him the first picture. "well..." I threw down every thing he worked for, and told them both that I did not leave Arizona to fake teach some one and have him fake respond, who actually needs to understand the gospel. It happened again later that day with a investigator who is on date to be baptized, I shut that one down too. But I learned some really good things to better my teaching from him!

On my birthday I went over to the Lansing stake center to pick up my new companion that was great. I seriously forgot it was my birthday until I saw a huge package there for me and then also every one started singing happy birthday at one point. So my new companion is Elder H, from Idaho. He is about 4 inches shorter than me and 4 days younger than me but we get along gr8 =p. I love the guy, he is so funny! He is seriously everything that I have been praying for in a companion for like the last 2 weeks of my life and is super pumped and "unspotted from the world". 

He waits for me in the morning so we can pray over our cereal together so it will "nourish and strengthen our bodies" ha ha. Hes a great missionary and does really well being out here. His only thing is he is not comfortable door knocking and when ever I try to pass the lesson on to him he just stares  and we have a awkward silence. But he has no problem talking to people he just doesn't know the lessons which makes sense.

I love doing the 12 week program to train Elder H, I learn so much from it ha ha, who knew I forget to do so much stuff when I teach!

This week I made the mistake of slipping in one of my prayers "help me develop charity"... this week has shown that Heavenly Father always answers those prayers for some reason.

We got yelled at like every day, people were trying to bash with us, and one lady yesterday started telling me how my life was and how I don't have a testimony... For real I don't have a pet named peeves, but if I did.

 Sorry this email is kinda short the elders in the Family history center keep getting me distracted, it's a "Holiday" so we all had to come up here to email since the library's are closed.

Well, I gotta go they are calling me to go ball it up in the gym

stick it to the man!
church is true!
Bye I love you

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

#whendoorknocking and their keys are sticking outside of the lock, knock , tell them about the keys, not interested, and the deadbolt clicks after the door closes..

We got our transfer calls and my companion is going home (shocker ha ha) and I am now going to be trainer! Turns out as I was talking to my district leader there is only 4 missionaries who will be training, and out of every one in the mission I was chosen to be one of those trainers, I guess I must have done something right ha ha.=p

So that robot "Tiwi" that they installed in our cars finally got to me, I thought I would never have a problem with it but as we were driving out to Portland, MI, a huge moving truck almost plowed into us and I jerked the wheel left into the other lane with no time to look (good thin no one was there!)  I sped up to get in front  of that truck  (10 over)  and that stupid thing starts yelling at me "check speed, check speed!". That thing made me fired up! And I was hesitant being near the semi's while on the fast and the furious the rest of the drive up and so I sped up to get in front of them all, the lanes went from 3 to 2 and there was no way to jerk if that happened again. That stupid thin yelled at me 5 times "check speed, check speed!". My companion just laughed about it,  it would startle me and I would call it the vilest of all names and yell back "you Democrat!".

But it was cool going to Portland for District meeting because they are closing one of the Elders areas up there and so we had to clean the apartment and I don't really think I did much cleaning but I did lots or raiding! It was like Christmas!

Well I am sad to see Elder B go he's a good guy and every one says we have the same personality, we actually never once argued about anything or had a need for the "resolve conflicts" part in comp inventory. I learned a lot from him like what house hold cleaners to spray on big juicy spiders to kill them, That I always say "well..." Before I call some one to repentance or say something that's a discrete spiritual back hand., and many other things.

I am super excited to train, and I have had some subtle inspiration this past 6 weeks that made me think I would train and what to do if I were to train. But I REALLY hope I get some one who is pumped to work that's all I ask, Because if he is and he being unspotted from the world of disobedient or trunky missionaries It would be perfect to use him to get rid of all of my bad habits and retrain myself to be more PMG obedient. I've started on several things to be more obedient like contacting investigators every single day, I have never thought that was necessary but I am gaining a testimony of it now, asking for referrals from every one, I have never had a companion who has done that in any way shape or form so I need to abuse that and several other things I am and will bust my rear to happen so it help him , me and the area. That's really important because Satan is working over time and if he is doing all of these things that are making loads of people falter and..... then I can at least call the people I work with every day, at least!

I am going to MSU to meet my temporary companion Elder W and to ditch Elder B so he can go back to the Motherland. And on Thursday my birthday I will get my new companion.

Yesterday some members had us over to celebrate my birthday, they sang happy birthday like it was a funeral =(, but you guys sang it for me I guess it doesn't matter, their 16 Y.O. daughter made me a cheesecake for it... ugh the struggle is real.

I totally understand what Ella means though wanting to stop Orchestra to be more productive, I felt the same exact thing when I got to my sophomore year in it, and because I stopped it I have learned lessons and had adventures that are way more valuable than being able to play a instrument I have never seen since I came out here. But ukulele and Guitars are still erry where so...

P-day last week was so much fun! it rained the whole like 4 hours we were playing ultimate Frisbee and kickball but Michigans soil just ate it all up and no one even got muddy except for me and like 4 other people who dove for the Frisbee.

Theres a member we are reactivating who meets up with him family every Friday for a big family dinner I thought the Idea was awesome.

I gotta go get my temporary comp I still have like a half a hour to email so I may or may not be back depending on if he needs to email or not.

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot!

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

A note from The Man.

Dear Brother and Sister Crockett,

This letter is to inform you that your son, Elder Truman Crockett, has been called as a trainer. One of the greatest expressions of trust a Mission President can give a missionary is to assign him as a trainer of a new missionary.  A missionary’s first companion will have a profound and lasting influence on the development of the new missionary’s attitude and habits.

We look forward to working with your son in this assignment.  Thank you for raising such a wonderful son.

Sincerely,

Michael V. Jacobsen, President

Michigan Lansing Mission

#whendoorknocking and the door flys open when your fist hits it...the door just sat open with the house silent. I then jump a foot in the air when some one kicks the door shut and yells "No thanks"

dang it man I spent like 20 minutes writing and I accidentally hit a key combination and it erased everything and saved...........................................................................DEMOCRAT!

This has been a huge Wheat from Tares week! We got rid of 5 investigators who aren't progressing in any way shape or form. And they were all replaced by referrals, and every referrals we contacted except 1 agreed to us teaching them. The director of proselyting for the church said this and I keep thinking about it this week, "stop trying to convince people that they are prepared and start teaching prepared people". And that is basically what has been happening this week not intentionally.

I alsos forgots to when I was bearing my testimonys in my missions languages forgots to says "That's whats up" at the end of it.

One of the really prepared people we are teaching is an 11 year old girl.  Her father is not active (Hasn't been in years), but because of us coming over and teaching her and her motivation to read the Book of Mormon it has really touched her father. He came to church this week for the first time, and then so did her not active uncle and her less active grandma. All because this young girl has been meeting with us and is super excited to be baptized. That's whats up.

We were door knocking and this guy opened the door and said "it's about time I found you". Turns out he is a member who moved from California after his mother died and there was no record of him being here at all. He didn't even know there was a LDS church in the area. We came back to teaching him and he was like "Elder Crockett you look a lot like Stephan Stroove" oh man it got real! I actually studied his fighting technique for a while  since he is a tall lengthy guy (UFC fighter) but we hit it off immediately. We then taught him the Plan of Salvation because a lot of his thoughts and questions were directed to that. it was awesome seeing the spirit work on him and pull at the strings of his heart and make him remember things. We got him put on record yesterday. He is super excited to come to church and he really wants his girl friend to learn about the gospel.  

So I was thinking for my birthday mommy you could send me some tie clips, and maybe a new journal  because I am half way through the one I have right now which I just got 3 months ago. And Hamilton you mentioned to remember all of the cool stories I have so we can talk about them, I have not missed a day of writing in my journal since I left home. You could probably also send me the shirts Will got me but I don't need to carry around any winter gear now. I also lost one of the SD cards I have so I was gonna send a package with the SD card with pictures but that will have to wait. other than that use discernment (home boy Truman G. calls it dizernment) 

A member here has been harassing me because I don't milk my accent enough while door knocking. Where could I say my ancestors are from so when I get asked about it I could turn it into a family history approach.

So to tell you more about the area I am serving in Holt is like Showlow. There is only 3 main roads and it's small but the thing is the main roads lead to Lansing, which is the capital of Michigan. so it goes from a small showlow to a place just like California with the fast and the furious driving every where, intersections that have 6 different streets at 1 point. lanes that do full circles, lanes that move you into places you didn't want to go because you weren't warned in advanced enough and the traffic is killer at the moment, 2 different stop lights not 100 feet apart from each other, and pot holes and  broken street like none other. Mason is really nice though, I could live in mason if there was a temple and family who lived there.

This week we are having Transfer calls so pray for me that I get an obedient missionary who I get along with, since Elder B is going home I will get a new companion. So you wanted to know about my current companion, he is really cool, he quotes me a lot , and he drives using Cruise control every where, even in Lansing traffic. Which is scary! But we had a zone conference this week and they installed a robot in our car that monitors our driving and if we are defensive or aggressive and then reports the info to the mission office. Out of all of the bone clenching moments I have had, ever since the robot came all of that stopped =p.

We also have been teaching a less active who randomly came to church once and we have been going over ever since and it was awesome the first time he went he brought out his triple combination that had been neglected. He was at D&C 20 something, he in now at D&C 94 1 month later and is going to church and is devouring the scriptures, I love to see how the spirit is working on him.

really good things are happening! we got 2 people on date this week, 1 got food poisoning and couldn't come to church, the other came to the wrong ward on sunday. One is 78 the other is 82 years old. that's whats up =p

Well I am off to go play some ultimate Frisbee with my zone of like 35 people so I really hope it doesn't rain to hard.

Bye I love you have a good day, it was super healthy to see you,

don't get shot!

that's whats up

love

-Elder Truman Rex Crockett

"#whendoorknocking and the house your walking up to starts getting sprayed by gas by people in hasmat suits and gasmasks um...skip? YEP!"

Michigan is so beautiful right now! there is flowers every where! They are growing all over the place wildly. That and all of the trees are regaining their leaves and a lot of them are covered in flowers as well. And the weather here has been awesome too nice and gently windy and sunny. It's also fun  because all of the spiders are coming out again and we keep finding these monsters in our apartment and the game to find them on door steps is starting again. It's really interesting though when winter hits Michigan how there is no bugs or anything in any way shape or form at all.

So this week has been pretty great and we have had alot of miracles. We have gotten 6 referrals this week! I have never really even gotton 2 in a week before. 3 were from Mormon.org, 1 from other missionaries and the rest from members. We haven't contacted them all yet  but we've been trying. The ones we have contacted 1 wasn't interested and 2 others are super interested and we have times where we are going to teach them. We got one at like 2am last night from HQ. So we must be doing something right I guess =p.

 We were really crunching down on miles at the end of this month, In fact on the last night of the month we were within .2 miles of going over our allotted amount. And the scary part was we were just barely in town and There was no way we could get back to our apartment driving there. We went to a back road and I had my companion turn off the car and put it in neutral and then I pushed the car as fast as I could down the road (to try to make it back to the apartment, it was like 9:10 pm already) until all we had to do was drive across the main road to our apartment. So hey that one time in Mesa when we pushed Jacob Cluff's car to Mesa High from our old house prepared me for a mission! It was a killer work out doing it at that speed.  

You'd think I get burned enough to learn to go and buy some sunscreen.

This week we had whats call  "the spring fling" down in Mason and it's a huge carnival  in the grass of the courthouse (the one one that's in the movie real steel)  there were booths every where and our ward missionaries set up a family history booth for us to run. 

We had trained family history consultants with computers to teach people how to use family search and then they wanted us to get people in to talk to them. So I was on my feet from 8am to 5 pm handing out fliers and inviting people to learn about family history and the gospel. I stopped counting at 84.5 (I count ITL's using my stopwatch) and that happened like a hour in to the spring fling. there was like a two hour break before my companion just sat and counted all of the people I was inviting to learn, he counted around 208. But we ran out of fliers for family search so quick, so I started handing out pedigree charts and gave out more than 300. 

That was super healthy for the members to see that and they were really impressed and they joined in in passing out things too. We had such a good place that there were probably 1000 people who walked past us and we just dished things out and got people to those computers. And we didn't get any new investigators or appointments from it but we did get some for other missionaries.  We also had missionary pamphlets and Book of Mormons on the tables and several people took some pamphlets and it led to us getting those people to accepting to learn about the gospel.  It was fun, but I was beat after being on my feet standing in one place that whole time. All I did was stand and let people come to me, if one turned me down all I did was turn around and ask some one new.

We went to go teach a less active member on Wednesday. Oh man that got heated ha ha. We had recently taught about tithing and WoW and so I asked about how she was doing on living those commandments. And she flipped a biscuit  hard core! I wanted to leave, I almost stood up and walked out. My companion was sinking in his chair Eyes all the way open. I was done and was way ready to go. I then without thinking about it snapped back reached from my frying pan behind my back put a biscuit on and started flipping. 

Mine was different though, I didn't even realize I started talking but I kept going, I was shaking in my seat like I was shivering. I was asking questions and then using her words to bear testimony to her super boldly and telling her why we are here as missionaries. And every time she would snap back I would "create a need" and then bear testimony, until it softened her heart enough for us to teach her. We then started reading D&C 89 (word of wisdom) and I was still shaking in my seat just thinking "did that just happen?" . She wouldn't out right accept my commitment to live the Word of Wisdom, she kept beating around the bush. But as we were leaving she said she would really think about it.

We heard from our investigator T finally! well that was on Thursday and he said I am in the hospital and I am getting surgery today. and that was the last we heard from him, so I don't think he will make his date of being baptized this week.

We also put a investigator on date to be baptized. He got really excited about it and was like ya I would love to be baptized. we then set a date and as we were leaving told us to not expect him to read his scriptures every day and to go to church though..... aaaaaahhhhhhh!  It's ok we have like 2 months to work on that.  he got in a car accident that day before our lesson and it was a miracle that he was able to get out of that alive let alone without a scratch, his wife took a beating though! It was really sad when she said hi to us.

It was weird last week seeing it go from 82 degrees out to snow in the morning.

Ya cool well I guess I will "see" you soon =p. #skype

May the 4th be with you!

way to be at not getting shot! Keep it up!

love you!

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett